No Rest For The Wicked
by moodyreindeer
Summary: After two years of being in Eichen House, Isaiah's parents transfer her to Beacon Hills High for her freshman year. There she meets Liam, a long-time friend and crush. When she discovers that he is not only a werewolf, but that she has been seeing a piece of one of his pack member's past that shouldn't be, she begins to learn that the Beacon Hills has a much more darker side.
1. Chapter 1

**PROLOUGE**

_"The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?"_

_- _edgar allen poe

* * *

She wasn't going to miss anything about Eichen House.

The entire experience in the solemn environment lacked all hope for its patients, most of them choosing to remain locked in their eight by eight concrete rooms, heavily sedated with medicines and fatigue.

She was not of them - one of the people who craved for their morning prescriptions, the dose barely enough to keep them hanging on until the next one after evening group.

Isaiah Montgomery was not like the people here.

She stood in the drafty girls' room, staring down idly at the white-capped pill bottle she head in her hand. Her thumb rolled across the dark tiny words as if she wished to wipe away a stain. It was a habit she'd developed in vain of defying her denial, even though she knew such a thing was useless.

**ARIPIPRAZOLE**

**TWO DAILY - ONE BEFORE BED; ONE AFTER WAKING UP**

**PRESCRIBED TO ISAIAH E. MONTGOMERY**

The salmon colored pills fell against one another, rattling as she stuffed them in her duffel bag along with the rest of toiletries, her curtain of grease-slicked hair draping itself over her shoulders and stubbornly falling from where she pushed it behind her ears.

If Eichen House was good for anything, it was making her miss all mundane pleasures people, including her past self, took for granted - like the beauty of showering in privacy and getting a haircut.

She ached for many things - the gentle snip of scissors when cutting out something she like from a magazine; the soft feel of a steering wheel gripped her hands; the cold trail a slushie left in your throat.

Isaiah exited the bathroom as quickly as she dared, packed bag hiked high on her shoulder. It was doubtful that her parents would let her do anything that involved more than taking her medicine and breathing.

Nothing was changing; she was just migrating from one prison to the next, except that in her next one, the wards were going to make her attend eight torturous hours of high school, because being looked at from underneath a million different microscopes wasn't enough of a punishment.

The room was empty by the time Isaiah returned. Meredith's side was as blank and orderly as it always was when she wasn't in the room. It wasn't like she had much to decorate her side with anyway. Not with all her dead family members and lack of sentimental attachment toward anything. But there was no sign of a struggle this time - no drag in the floor's grime, no scratches marred on the concrete walls. She must have gone to group willingly this time.

For the last time, Isaiah sat on her bed. The mattress reeked of cigarettes and bleach, had horrible lumps and squeaked every time you breathed, but she dreaded the moment when the orderly came to take out to her father, who was no doubt elbow deep in release forms and medical transcripts.

Her feet hurt. After two years in nothing but thick socks and slippers, having tightly laced shoes felt like her feet were locked in lead blocks. The lace of her shirt itched and her jeans squeezed uncomfortably on her thighs and ankles.

She never thought it was possible to miss sweatpants and slippers so much.

The orderly that came to fetch her was the one that usually came to drop off her meals - usually inedible lumps of potato and meat covered in an indescribable sauce.

He was tall, one of the main orderlies that manned the floor. His arms bulged with popped veins and thick muscles underneath scarred dark skin. He hardly ever spoke and walked like the undead. Isaiah wasn't even sure if he had a name.

But he wasn't like the odd comfort of sweatpants and slippers. She wouldn't miss him.

Nonetheless, Isaiah followed without comment, although she was infamous for her sharp tongue and the consequences that undoubtedly followed. She had no problem scowling at the small of his back, however, it being the only spot on him that she could level with, even at her height. The weight of her bag in her clammy hands felt like bricks, weighed down mostly with medications and treatments they said would be necessary for her to take and use. Even after two years, Isaiah remembered a life where her baggage would be in someone else's hand.

Chivalry really was dead.

The stairs took in an eternity in her lead-laced shoes and the weight she carried. It was a quiet evening that Thursday, except for the wailing on the third floor, which never stopped, even late into the night. Unlike her first few months, chills didn't rush down her spine. Nor did goosebumps cover her limbs. Oddly enough, she wondered if she would be able to sleep at night without the continuity of the gurgled cries.

In the dank lobby, her father waited. He was an unsettling sight in his crisp work suit and shiny loafers, looking like he stepped out of _The Great Gatsby_. A very out of place sight amongst the stained walls and monotonous creatures that lived and worked here.

Her heart ached. The sight of him made her toes curl from where they perspired in her shoes.

He wasn't the one she wanted. Isaiah's heart and mind instantly thought of Liam when thinking of her day of freedom. She wanted two years before, when she was in seventh grade and incompetent with antipsychotics and group therapies.

Her father only twisted the stabbing icicle in her gut more, pushing it deeper into her intestines and making icy water set her warm insides ablaze with freezing heat.

The despicable feeling only grew worse as she neared, the orderly stiffly moving to the side to allow the father and daughter reunite.

James Montgomery smiled, his lips pulling back to reveal teeth like a shark's. "Darling, we've missed you!"

Isaiah shrugged. She wanted freedom, but not all the accessories that came along with it, like her parents pretending they had no choice not to visit, to avoid take her phone calls, to sidestep her begs to be released.

She would follow in their footsteps, communication no longer a survival skill.

The limousine outside stretched like a festive hearse outside Eichen's gates. Isaiah ignored the driver's offer to take her bags, throwing them into the trunk herself. She had completely given up on the false politeness of males, it grating of her thorn-edged walls.

The only person who could ever understand the desire of Eichen House again in the face of her parents would be Liam, but she had no idea what became of his existence. He could be anywhere, possibly out of state.

The thought of such a possibility made her skin crawl, the ghost in her bones curl up and screech.

It wasn't the only one.

Another one lingered, but it was much farther away than in her veins. Isaiah knew better than to bring up such a haunting, instead choosing to cooly slip her sunglasses over her face to block out her father's face in front of her. Without the sight of him, she could mute him with little to no effort.

Blocking out noises was another forcibly developed skill during her stay in the talked in her sleep every night, and mumbled herself deeper into insanity nearly every day, every moment there weren't massive orderlies hovering over their shoulders.

But the thick dark shades weren't enough to keep the ghost at bay. After months of her existence, Isaiah had learned to accept her presence, no matter how abrupt and disturbing it registered to her.

Logic whispered to her that it was just the effect of living with crazies. The lady would go away soon, just like her memories of Eichen House would fade with time.

For now, the lady lingered, in a tattered blue dress that hung off her pale and dirty frame, the straps stained by her greasy strands of hair. Despite her wrecked appearance, the lady sat beside Isaiah's father delicately, her filthy hands clasped in her lap, her bare feet crossed at the ankles.

Constantly, she introduced herself as Claudia.

She wasn't doing so now, but she still spoke. Unlike her father's, Isaiah couldn't get rid of hers. She had no choice but the listen. Claudia's voice oozed through her brain like a thick slime, sickly sweet and low, whispered as if everything she spoke was to be taken urgently.

"My son lived there once," she said, her voice void of anything but distance and wistfulness. From where her head had been turned, looking out the tinted windows and at the trees and buildings as they sped past, blurring into one another, she slowly swiveled, until her glassy hazel eyes were staring past Isaiah's cruel facade. They were as blank as fresh notebook paper.

"Please tell him I said hello."

* * *

**Hello, and welcome to my second Teen Wolf story!**

**This will be a lengthy mult-chapter, one that I hope to be my main project as it has so far helped me get out of my writing slump that I've been in for a while.**

**Basically, Isaiah is a girl that Liam has a past with and she has a supernatural occurrence of her own, which gets her tangled up with Claudia, who I thought it would be really fun to write.**

**The premise of the story is based off a gif set I saw on tumblr about an AU where Lydia was a special type of banshee that could also see ghosts, that including Allison. It showed how Allison went from a friendly sight to a vengeful spirit, as most spirits often do.**

**This also came to me when thinking about my friend's new story, _The Game._ Her pen is AlphaBetaSoup, if any of you want to check that out.**

**I wanted to write something about Liam having a romance, and having one where Lydia sees Claudia wouldn't do that, and this way, with Isaiah being involved with Claudia, it will not only get her in with Liam, but his pack as well considering it is Stiles' mom.**

**I don't know hoe long this will be, but I have been having a lot of fun thinking about where I want it to go so far. I don't know if I want to put her on the list, or if I want the list to be the one canon thing I ignored while I write this, but we'll see.**

**Please leave and tell me what you think, and if you're excited to read more!**


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER ONE:**

_"Don't go, don't leave me now_

_'Cause they say the best way out, is through."_

"ungodly hour" - the fray

* * *

The sky above Beacon Hills was rapidly darkening. Liam looked up at the swirling gray and black storm clouds, already filling with trepidation for a bad day.

Not only was the impending night his third full moon, but it was also the first afternoon Scott was going to let him train.

Initially, he hadn't been worried. Liam knew that he had a strong athletic future for the rest of his school career, but the thought of training with experience werewolves and a weapon-wielding kitsune wasn't one that brought as much eagerness as it did anxiety.

Scott had told him on the night of his first full moon that focusing on something made the pull of the full moon less noticeable. That he needed an anchor. To keep him grounded.

After analyzing his pack's anchors, he found that nearly impossible. For Malia, it was her guilt of killing her family; for Derek, it was all his pent up anger; and for Scott, it was himself, because he anchor died.

Liam spent the entire morning thinking of his anchor - from the moment he was fully awake to when he got off the bus.

It was strange, thinking of something that would help him control his anger and newfound abilities. His group of friends had shrunk upon learning of Garrett and Violet's true nature, but he still had Mason. He still had the few friends who still contacted him from Davenforth.

He also had the McCall pack, although they weren't the best at showing it. Some people Liam didn't hold it against - Derek and Malia, for instance. They both seem incapable of accepting people right off the bat, like Scott and Kira did. Lydia was slightly better, less frigid, but still scary. Liam didn't take it personally, though - she seemed to be that way without noticing it herself.

Lastly, Stiles. Stilinski.

The disdain between the two was obvious, almost overwhelmingly so. Scott had filled him in on the gist of what happened last semester, and Liam paid enough attention to his therapist to spot all the familiar signs of trauma, but that didn't make it any easier to resist biting back at Stilinski's jabs at him.

For now, he would remain anchor-less. Pathetically so.

"Hey man, you free tonight?" Mason asked as they left fourth hour together. It was their longest class, and the last before fifth hour lunch, but it seemed to drag on almost treacherously slow today. Everything about it was painful - the scratch of the chalk; the grating nasal effect of Mr. Kavanagh's voice; the several hearts that pounded viciously; the different aromas throughout the classroom.

Liam would be lucky to make it out of school without attacking the nearest student at the rate his day was going at.

"Yo, dude, you listening?"

Liam snapped his attention back to Mason, who was eyeing him oddly. "Sorry, can't man, McCall's rounding the whole team up for an extra-long practice."

He listened to the sound of his own heart's uptick. God, was he a terrible friend.

Mason deflated beside, pouring salt into the wound.

It wasn't past him that Liam hadn't been spending the time with Mason he had before he got the Bite. It didn't help that the friends he thought he had were secretly assassins and Mason had no clue, unknowingly putting himself in danger as he continued to hang out with them.

"But, we could catch up this weekend?" Liam offered, hiking his backpack up higher, even though it felt like a feather compared to the boulders that it was a mere month ago. "Maybe order a pizza and marathon some Marvel movies? My parents are both working the night shifts."

Mason picked his head up, brightening at the proposition. "It's a date, man."

* * *

After making his plans with Mason, Liam coasted through the rest of his day. His lunch even had a little bit of taste to it, even through the school's pasta tasted like rubber and the milk was like drinking vomit.

He got off at his stop after school realizing that it definitely wasn't the worst day that he could've had on a full moon.

It doesn't even disturb him that he walks home from the bus after school and comes into an empty house. Not as much as it would have the day before.

With his parents' obscene work schedules, an empty house was hardly uncommon. By now Liam had developed a sense of being left alone; the hoard of takeout menus that steadily grew in a spare kitchen drawer proved just that.

While the situation wasn't ideal, he made the most of it. Played his music louder than his mother's limit; ate in his room; peed with the bathroom door open.

It was the little things that made it a little better.

As he climbed the long staircase to his bedroom, his empty house and tiny freedoms were the last thing on his mind. Instead, Liam was thinking about his restraints.

Ever since the chaotic night of his first full moon, Lydia and Scott's boss, Deaton, had been looking into better restraints, ever since Malia and Liam wrecked theirs.

Liam didn't know much about Deaton, and Stiles had flatly advised that he should keep it that way, because knowing more only made understanding it more hellish. But, apparently, the guy knew what he was doing, so no one ever argued with him.

That didn't make Liam any less reluctant at his newest idea.

Wolfsbane. Wolfsbane chains.

Liam had paid enough attention during the few pack meeting he's been to to know that the right amount of wolfsbane could end you. Any amount of wolfsbane was something to stay away from.

That didn't stop Lydia's researching and experimenting. She practically spent the entire month of February at the vet's, obsessively looking into different mixtures and ingredients that would dull the plant's lethal quality but still work in weakening his powers.

Secretly, he was terrified.

Liam knew there was no valid reason to be; maybe if anyone besides Lydia and Deaton were working on it, or if Scott hadn't seemed okay with the idea.

But recently, ever since Garrett kidnapped him and filled his heart with wolfsbane, Liam had been cautious about a lot of things, especially weapons that were involved with the lethal plant. He knew they wouldn't be even considering the idea at all if there was a chance he was going to die, but the boat rocked either way in a town like Beacon Hills. It just depended on what your luck was.

His thoughts ricocheted off the walls of his mind as he walked into his bedroom, distractedly tossing his backpack near the foot of his bed and hoping that he didn't send it sailing through his window.

More often than not, Liam ditched the thought of hanging around his room. Ever since his senses were given level-ups, he enjoyed being in other places that were soothing on all of five of them at once, like the kitchen for it's dim lighting and many familiar scents.

His room offered the opposite effect. It felt too stuffy with the dust he'd never bothered to take care of before, and the laundry that piled up because he had the time to spare for it. Even the comfort of his own bed was taunting, the frame of it squeaking from his tossing and turning. For the sake of his own sanity, Liam spent most nights curled up in his closet in a sleeping bag.

There were probably better ways to solve this, to adjust his life around the newfound annoyances, but it seemed petty to bother Scott with things like a squeaky bed and a dusty room when he had a deadpool on his hands.

That was why as soon as Liam had splashed cold water over his face and examined the dark bags under his eyes, he fled back downstairs, armed with only his phone and keys in his pockets.

As far as refuges go, the kitchen wasn't a bad one. Liam's mother, Melanie, had a thing for change, and usually redesigned whatever room in the house was bugging her every six months. It was an odd habit to grow up being around, but Liam found it oddly soothing, always having a change of scenery. It felt safe, routine. Like things were in constant motion.

For the moment, it was black and white, with bright colors popping up casually in different places - the rugs at the sink and refrigerator; the hand towels on the oven handle; the fruit bowl sitting on the white marble island.

Liam snatched an apple as he passed, biting into it hungrily. He immediately latched on to the of the fruit, savoring the juice as long as he could. Like the many smells of the kitchen, distracting his taste buds helped occasionally. Not much, but enough to make it bearable.

Just as he was hopping onto the counter, intent on just being and sitting, burying himself deep into the setting, his phone pinged.

As Liam predicted, it was Scott.

Scott was the only one of the pack who ever contacted him by text - besides Malia, but she had a thing for texting everybody, and he learned to just ignore the ones from her that didn't make any sense.

Meet at Derek's loft. Emergency pack meeting.

Liam stared until the words swam in front of him and his eyes stung.

When Scott first brought up the topic of pack meetings, Liam didn't know what to think. It sounded like a two hour long conversation on supernatural population issues in Beacon Hills. Somewhere in the back of his head, he'd known he wasn't being fair with writing it off that way, but he didn't see the point of bringing up every bad thing that was happening around them when everyone else already knew.

That didn't lessen his urgency to get the loft any.

Liam changed into a pair of shorts and his lacrosse sweatshirt, shoving into a pair of sneakers as he prepared to leave. He had enough sense to grab his keys and phone, knowing it will be hell on earth if he's gone for the entire night and his stepfather has no way to contact him.

The run to the Derek's apartment complex was a short one, as far as his jogs went. His increased stamina and speed was another advantage to the werewolf business that Liam found himself not minding, the older wolf's loft coming into view twice as quicker than it would've before.

By the time he made it inside, almost everyone was there, except Stiles and Malia.

"They're probably struggling to find their clothes as we speak," Lydia scoffed as Liam quietly took a seat on the far end of the couch.

"Lydia!" Kira hissed, flushing at the implication. The freshman didn't know why; it didn't escape him that Scott and Kira had probably done the same.

The alpha himself was off to the side, talking with Derek quietly. Liam would have attempted to tune in on any other day, but couldn't find the energy in himself to do so at that moment. Add in the fact that he was reluctant to use his wolf abilities on full moons, seeing how he found it hard to limit himself.

By their serious expressions, their topic of discussion couldn't be any good.

Liam slumped forward. He didn't know why he'd been hoping for anything other than bad news, the emergency pack meeting implying just that.

Stiles and Malia came tumbling through the door just as Scott and Derek broke apart, the junior moving to sit next to his girlfriend on the floor. Lydia shot the tardy couple and rumbled clothes an annoyed look as they went to sit next to the other couple on the floor.

"Can we just get on with it?" Lydia prompted in the momentary silence. "I was in the middle of working on the chains when your text so rudely interrupted me."

The reference to the project set Liam nerves on fire. He would be lying if he said a small part of him was hoping she couldn't figure them out, but it was Lydia. She was basically Einstein with a million credit cards and high heels.

Derek stood in front of the group, as grim looking as always. "There's another banshee," he announced, skipping all introduction. "And she's transferring to your school as a freshman."

All eyes jump to Liam, who looked out the windows, watching the ominous clouds darken in the sky. They'd been like that all day, as if wishing to torment him.

"Is that all we know about her?" Kira asked.

"There's not much to tell. I haven't even heard of her family - the Montgomerys'?"

At the name, Liam froze, time thickening in the air. The sound of his blood pumping through his veins rushed through his superbly attuned ears.

He hadn't heard that name in years. Not since seventh grade.

"They're another rich family on the other side of town," Lydia informed them, sounding casual. "Her dad owns at least half of the east coast. About two years ago there was this big scandal about him shipping his daughter off to Eichen House."

Stiles laughed mirthlessly. "Sure, why not?"

"What we need to focus on is why her name isn't on the list," Derek cut in, looking at them all evenly. Liam wondered if the older man was listening to the quickened drum of his heartbeat, debating whether or not to call him out on it.

"Maybe the Benefactor didn't know about her," Kira offered from under Scott's arm.

"But he knew about Meredith," Malia said bitterly. She'd been unsettled ever since the news of her late friend's suicide, but she hardly ruled it as that.

"Maybe there's something wrong with her," Stiles suggested, looking up at the ceiling thoughtfully. "She could have a mental disease that makes her less valuable. The people in Eichen are pretty troubled, you know."

"Stiles," Scott reprimanded. "She's a person. Not an antique lamp."

"And why would they have let her out if she was still crazy?" Lydia pointed out. "I doubt they'd let her loose after two years of keeping her locked up."

"Unless daddy Warbucks made a hefty bribe," Stiles argued. "Brunski is hardly one to pass up on money when he can get it."

"James wouldn't do that."

Liam wasn't aware he'd said anything until the other six heads in the room moved in his direction. His hand was currently burying his claws into the side of the couch. With a wince, he retracted his claws and prayed no one would notice the five holes punctured into the cushion.

"How do you know that?" Stiles queried. He made no attempt to hide his suspicion, even narrowing his eyes a little.

"Isaiah and I we were in the same school in seventh grade," Liam muttered in explanation. He looked at the muddy tips of his Nikes, not daring to make eye contact.

In actuality, their relationship went way beyond sharing the same school building. Not only had they ridden the same bus route for years, their fathers were close friends up until Liam's parents' nasty divorce three years ago.

That never affected him and Isaiah much. How could it? They knew everything about each other, from their zodiac signs to the way they chewed bubblegum. Their fathers' sudden division never strained that, if not deepened their relationship.

It was only torn apart by Isaiah's sudden disappearance a week before Halloween.

"And?" Lydia made a gesture with his hands to go on, as if he'd paused in the middle of giving the secrets to the universe.

"And what?" he snapped in return, feeling a rush of anger wash over him. He tried to will it away, but he wasn't good at that yet. It settled into his veins, pumping along to his speeding heartbeat. "We were friends and then she fell of the face of the fucking earth. End of story."

Scott slid up slowly from the ground, taking a cautious seat next to his beta. "Liam, calm down."

The alpha's hand on his shoulder helped a little, but the furious buzz didn't fade completely. He still felt it, lowly thumping with his pulse.

"Is there anything else you can tell us about her?" Scott asked quietly. His thumb dug soothing circles into Liam's shoulder.

The freshman blinked, frustrated at the tears making their way into the corner of his eyes. It'd been years since Liam had spared a glance to Isaiah's memory, and now that she had popped up again, the attention grabber she'd always been, every detail of her flooded him, dragging him under its current.

Her blonde hair, her startling blue/green eyes, and her naturally arched eyebrows that brought attention to the innocent wideness of her eyes. The plump of her pouty pink lips and the small gap between her two front teeth. At lunch, she loved to stick her milk straw between it and make funny faces until Liam was in hysterics.

God, he missed her so much.

What he remembered most were her hands, and the graceful way they moved. She loved using them: playing piano; picking petals off sunflowers; twisting the stems off apples; painting her long nails insanely bright and glittery colors. She especially loved to use them to draw, the long and pale digits usually flecked with paint or marker.

"She liked to draw," Liam choked out. His throat felt full and closed off, stuffed with cotton before it was brutally shrunk down twelve sizes. He coughed, putting a freshly clawed hand to his throat as if to paw the feeling away, but it helped none.

His vision blurred, his sight beginning to swim with black spots. It turned fuzzy around the edges, like someone framed it with frost. Choking and coughing and wheezing, sweat poured down his face as he crippled to the ground.

He missed her _sososo_ much.

He didn't remember the hole she left when she vanished being this big, this gaping and painful. Oxygen fled from his lungs and his chest burned as he struggled for air, his mental picture of her dancing amongst the black spots in front of his eyes.

"Scott, I think he's having a panic attack?"

Who said that? And why the fuck were they screaming? Didn't they know the blood in his years was roaring loud enough for a million people?

Hands touched him. Pulled and mangled his body until he was looking up at moving version of the ceiling. Didn't they see it flying toward them, preparing to crush them at any moment?

Liam flinched, tried to scream in warning, fear and anxiety hurtling through his limbs at full force. He burned from the inside out, long blonde locks igniting the match that set his insides on fire.

"Liam. Liam, focus on the sound of my voice, bud."

"Liam! Fucking, breath dude!"

He didn't have time to tell the annoying duo of voices to fuck off before he passed out.

* * *

The attitude of her mother was as insufferable as her father's. Isaiah spent the night of her arrival back home locked in her room, playing her music so loud her head shook from underneath the bulky weight of her headphones.

Meaningless presents had greeted her on her bed, all stuff her naive younger self had pined for - a boy band poster, the newest Lady Gaga CD, Red Vines, the latest issues of Seventeen and Teen Vogue.

At first glance, she'd swiped all the useless shit into her still half-full garbage can and considered stomping into the kitchen and digging for a match.

Now, all Isaiah wanted was a yoyo and her sketch pad.

When her parents had shipped her off to Echen, they didn't give her anything but a bagful of toiletries and a change of clothes the orderlies immediately extracted and traded for regulated asylum wear. Because god forbid those mindless zombies have something that separated them from the others.

She didn't have a sheet of paper or stub of pencil.

That had to be the worst part of those horrid two years - no way of drawing, of putting what she saw, what she dreamed and felt, out in front of her. The best she could do was scratch the images in her brain on the wall with her haggard fingernails, which probably didn't help vouch for the idea that she wasn't crazy.

With a grunt, Isaiah stretched from where she was precariously balanced on her desk chair, reaching with her short arms to the small tub of kid toys she had stashed away on the shelf in her closet back in sixth grade, when they were no longer cool.

During that time, he'd asked why she didn't just throw them away if they weren't cool anymore.

"Because they might be cool again," she'd responded matter-of-factly before pushing the cubby-sized tub to the wall and jumping off her desk chair.

She wished for him now, because Liam would be able to get this damned box.

After the fifth try, she finally resorted to grabbing a hanger and pushing the stupid box forward until she could clutch it the edge of it in one hand.

With a triumphant cry, she turned and tossed the tub onto her bed from into her closet, jumping down from her chair.

It turned out, there were a lot of things uncool in the sixth grade.

Isaiah shuffled through slinkys, knotted piles of plastic bead necklaces, and the occasional clip on earring until she finally came across what she'd been looking for.

The Spider-Man picture on both sides of the red sphere was faded, peeling a little around the edges, but she could still read the yellow logo and make out the black netting of his suit.

Isaiah hooked her index finger through the small hoop at the end of the string and tested it out. She watched for a moment, watching the yoyo roll up and down at her command.

The images weren't as strong as they were at night, but they lasted a little longer.

The images of a boy, in a red shirt and denim overalls, toddling around a backyard gleefully with a bright red yoyo in his hand.

Isaiah shivered at his high laugh fell over her. It fell over her like a cold blanket of ice.

But the lady in the corner seemed completely at ease, even though she heard and felt it too.

Claudia crossed her dirty ankles and watched Isaiah closely.

"My son really liked yoyos," she commented wistfully. "Maybe we can bury him with one."


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER TWO: **

_"How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these."_

- george washington carver

* * *

There was no memory of her ever meeting Claudia - not truly, anyway.

It was a couple months into her stay at Eichen that Claudia introduced herself. Or, more accurately, kept saying her name until Isaiah talked back. But she appeared out of the blue, suddenly slipping into her routine until she became a regular thing.

Along with the nightmares.

Isaiah had nightmares long before the ghost lady appeared, but never ones as graphic and surreal as the ones Claudia brought along with her.

Her first night home was the scariest she'd had in weeks.

Every part of her turned to stone, immobilized as the yoyo's string wrapped around her throat, again and again until it cut into the pale skin of her throat and eroded a waterfall of blood, so dark and poisonous that it soaked everything in it's path, swallowing it up and bubbling over.

Her chest, her arms and hands and fingers. The skin stained pinked with blood, hardening over with the force of the crimson before getting submerged completely.

She awoke the next morning screaming, grabbing her throat as she stumbled out of her cocoon of blankets and sheets.

With a racing heart and parched throat, Isaiah fumbled to do the lock, falling against the floor a panting mess.

She didn't know why she was so nervous. By now her mother had fled to her troops hiding out at the country club, and her father was towns away, no doubt with whatever mistress hours before his work actually started.

Isaiah was all alone in her gigantic houseful of expensive toys and servants.

And of course Claudia, wherever she was lurking.

For now, the blonde tried to catch her breath as she listened for footsteps, in case anyone had been alerted by her screaming. But she doubted it; there was at least two floors between her bedroom and the kitchen and servant's quarters on the main floor.

When she could breathe without sucking in large, overdramatic gulps of air, Isaiah moved toward the mirror, pawing at her throat carefully.

At the nasty red line circling the base of pale skin, looking thick and nasty, she strangled by a gasp and nearly fell to the floor.

After blinking and looking again, it was gone.

It took several minutes of calming yoga breaths before she left the safety of the bathroom, treading across the hall and into her bedroom as quietly as possible.

She changed out of her bloodless pajamas and into a simple sweater and high-waist skirt, ditching the thought of shoes for some knee-high socks.

Even in her warm clothes and the soft April breeze blowing in, Isaiah felt like she was still be held captive in a frozen lake.

The ice in her bones drove away all thoughts of hunger.

Claudia watched her dive under the thick duvet of her colorful bed, blinking at her from atop her desk blankly.

"Maybe you should kill him with the yoyo," she suggest thoughtfully. "Kill him with what he loved."

* * *

Liam woke with searing pain flaring up everywhere. He began to struggle, screaming as he fell forward, the pain only seeming to intensify every time he moved.

"I told you it was too soon to use the chains!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, Lydia Martin's right again. Big surprise."

"Someone just help me get this damned things off him!"

The coarse leather of gloves reached out and instantly begin to fiddle with the lump of metal digging into the small of his back. A lock, no doubt.

Once the lock vanished, the covered hand proceeded to pull his hurtful binds from him, releasing him from their vice grip.

Liam tried to stand, only to find that it was taking longer for the pain to fade than necessary. He could hardly feel his legs, much less command them to move.

A face appeared above him, eyebrows drawn together tightly in concern.

"Are you okay?" Scott asked softly, putting hand on his shoulder.

Liam winced, expecting the intensity to flare up again, but instead he felt a soothing numbness. He turned his head to watch black veins leave his shoulder to go up Scott's arm.

"What are you doing?" the beta asked through gritted teeth.

"Taking your pain," Scott answered calmly, moving his hand down so that he could comfortingly squeeze the freshman's forearm.

Behind the alpha, Lydia and Stiles stood, bickering.

"What happened?" Liam asked, sitting up more. He turned his head from side to side. He recognized Scott's bedroom.

Scott smiled down at him sheepishly, pulling off the pair of leather gloves he wore. "You kind of had a panic attack at the pack meeting and went unconscious through the entire full moon."

Liam blink and looked to where the pile of chains sat on the floor. "If I was out cold, then what's up with the chains?"

"You were a little...twitchy."

Liam looked down at the fading red burns on his arms. Someone had stripped him down his wife beater and boxers.

"I don't think I'm ready for those yet," he deadpanned, looking straight down at the tight imprints of red that slowly vanished from his legs and arms.

Scott laughed meekly, tossing his gloves on top of the chains. "Don't worry, Lydia will get back to it."

Gradually, Liam moved from where he propped up against the wall and swung his legs over the side of the bed, grimacing as the last tendrils of pain left his body.

Hearing the bed creak from his movements, Lydia and Stiles stopped bickering long enough to walk over to where Scott was helping the beta stand.

"And sleeping beauty finally awakens," Stiles said in a way of greeting.

Scott threw him a look. "Dude."

"What? The kids sleep until eleven the next day and you expect me not to make a crack at that?" Stiles threw his hands up, as if the alpha was the one being ridiculous.

Lydia rolled her eyes at both of them. "We have bigger things to worry about other than Stiles' third grade humor."

At this, said junior made a noise as if he were offended that the she easily ignored.

"Liam." Lydia turned to the freshman, her face seriously drawn. "We need you to tell us everything you know about Isaiah Montgomery."

The young man looked to the three peering faces, feeling his claws come out at all the unwanted attention.

"Guys, I really don't know much," he protested. "All I can tell you supernatural-wise is that she disappeared before Halloween in the seventh grade and I haven't seen her since."

"So, she never acted weird?" Lydia pushed, crossing her arms over her chest. She stared him down doubtfully. "Like, pausing as if hearing things or acting as if something was there even though it wasn't?"

"No! Did you act that way before you knew you were a banshee?"

Lydia narrowed her eyes at him like he was a pesky fly; she hated when people snapped back at her.

"Guys," Scott cut in, putting a hand on Liam's chest to push him back a little. "Go easy on him. Lydia, you can relate to not knowing about your powers, and obviously the same must have happened with Isaiah while she was in Eichen House. If Liam knew anything more, he'd tell us. Right, bud?"

The beta nodded.

Scott smiled and squeezed his shoulder. Then, he turned to address all of them, trying for an easy smile but falling short, the corners of his mouth barely mouthing upward. "Now, how about some breakfast?"

Liam walked in the back of the group, Lydia and Stiles continuing to argue about whatever it was as they walked down the stairs, Scott failing to break it up in front of him.

The aroma of bacon and eggs and buttery pancakes hit him hard when he reached the bottom. Liam still wasn't used to the boost in his senses, no matter how many times a day he used them. It still freaked him out when he heard the daddy porn from two houses down, in the dead of night.

In the McCall kitchen, Kira stood fretting over her messy breakfast success proudly. Her pony tail had flour in it, her hands were caked in tiny bits of pancake batter, but she was plating the food and setting them out like no one's business.

"What, did a wild hog rampage the kitchen?" Lydia snorted upon seeing the room is such disarray.

Liam surveyed the area himself. Egg shells and excess whites were strewn everywhere, mainly by the half-empty carton of eggs that sat next to a ghostly white bag of pancake mix. Kira must have fumbled with it or something, because the fairly big square package could have passed as a big powdered doughnut for how much of its contents covered it.

"What's the orange stuff?" Stiles inquired, poking at his claimed plate experimentally with his fork.

"Cheese, why?"

"You put cheese in your eggs?"

Kira looked up from where she was attempting to pull sticky batter from the webs of her fingers. "You've never had cheese with your eggs before?" she gaped.

Stiles scrunched his nose up. "My mother was lactose intolerant and my dad sucked at cooking," he said as a way of explanation.

Kira still looked horrified at this newfound information. "Sit down and eat. Right now!" She shoved the taller boy into the nearest chair and practically forced a forkful of down the poor boy's throat.

Liam took this all in silently, grabbing his own plate and utensil before taking a ginger seat next to Scott on the couch in the living room, Lydia settling comfortably into the love seat. None of them wanted to see the messy outcome of Kira and Stiles in the activity of force-feeding.

As he began to cut into his stack of pancakes, the beta turned to the alpha.

"What are you gonna do to Isaiah?"

He was sure this was probably mentioned at the pack meeting, but seeing as he was unconscious for two thirds of it, it seemed like a valid question to ask.

Scott shrugged as he swallowed a mouthful of bacon. "Nothing bad, I promise," he assured at the younger man's worried features. "We found out that she's transferring to BHH, so we're just going to keep a watchful eye on her."

"You mean you want me to keep a watchful eye on her," Liam inferred flatly.

"Well, you're both freshman," Lydia reminded from the love seat. It was ridiculous; she made something as common as eating look like a beauty pageant entry piece. This must be what it felt like to dine with royalty, Liam figured as he dug further into his pancakes.

Add cooking to the things teenage kitsunes are expert in.

As he began to bite into one of his strips of crisp, greasy bacon, a loud clank came from the dining room.

"I get it, Kira! Eggs with cheese are good!"

"I'm not laying off until you make up for the years of going without it!"

"_Help me!_"

Liam cut into his third pancake as he swallowed his bacon and tried to ignore the alarming sound of a chair hitting the floor.

* * *

For a house as huge at the Montgomery's, spending so much time in it was easily the more boring thing on earth.

Isaiah had uneasily put Claudia and her yoyo-infected nightmares behind well before she stomped down the stairs for some breakfast. Along with her thoughts the aforementioned subjects, the older woman disappeared as she sometimes did. The blonde suspected it was a ghostly way of pouting, but she decided to revel in her alone time, knowing she would be back soon enough.

After a short breakfast of apple slices, orange juice, and a chocolate chip muffin, Isaiah returned to the safety of her room, downing her morning dose of medicine before Gretchen, the maid her mom had obviously paid extra to nanny her, had a conniption and called her parents.

Truthfully, it was taking the pills that made the duty such a chore, but the effect of them. It drove Isaiah mad how they made her drowsy, as if she hadn't just woken up from a (fitful) eight hours sleep just a short time back.

Not only that, but it also screwed with her head a little, making things like the shadows Claudia left behind seem bleaker, and the pictures she held onto from dreaming blurrier, as if the pills themselves didn't want her to remember all the abnormality of the past two years.

Maybe Eichen really did make her crazy.

Isaiah pushed all this away for now, grabbing her beloved sketchbook and one of her favorite pencils, flipping the book open to the freshest page. Seeing the unmarked page and being able to smell its age, to run her fingers of the soft, smooth surface of its face, loosened the fist that seemed clasped around her lungs lately.

It was a wonderful rush of euphoria, a delicious shot of ecstasy.

She thrived for every moment of it within her grasp.

With a deep, slow breath, Isaiah let her hand go off.

Drawing had always been a wonderful escape for her, despite her parents thinking it was a bad habit to get into because it led to unsteady career futures. But something happened to Isaiah when she drew, something so unexplainably fulfilling, that it was simply indescribably to those who didn't get it.

Her heart ached as she watched the speed of her hand and the thick lines of lead stain the paper's face, breathing life into her thoughts. Liam would get it. He would get it within a blink of an eye, without awkward words or clumsy explanations. He would just _get_ it.

She needed that. Isaiah _craved_ for that. For someone to truly, undoubtedly _get_ it. To get her.

It didn't take long for all the noise around to fall away. The traffic disappeared; the sprinklers vanished; the clanks of pots and pans downstairs faded into complete nothingness.

She would almost call it profound, if she ever did anything that fit the adjective.

Whenever she drew, Isaiah never knew what it meant in the end; kind of like staring at an abstract painting or watching your own dream while you're awake - it usually took a while for the meaning to set in.

After a peaceful eternity, she pulled her hand away. The side of her hand was covered in smeared lead, and the microscopic tip of her pencil had broke off, and left a tiny scar as it rolled off the page, but the picture was flawless.

Unlike the ones she'd drawn before, it wasn't a living thing.

Instead, it was a jersey. The number read 44, and where the last name was supposed to go on a regular jersey, there were only three letters - MSD.

Isaiah frowned; no one with those initials came to mind.

That was the only downside to drawing with just a pencil, there were very few hints. Beside the number, initials, and the object itself, Isaiah had nothing, no straws to grasp.

She didn't know the school, the team, the sport, the color - not even if the player was a boy or a girl.

MSD could be anybody.

Isaiah sighed, running a frustrated hand through her loose curls.

"Any chance you want to help me out?" she called dryly into the empty space of her room. She didn't worry about being heard - her parents had long ago made sure the rooms were soundproof, more for their benefit than hers.

Besides, it wasn't like she was talking to herself - Claudia was always nearby, pouting in her ghostly lonesome or not.

Her nubby pencil picked itself up, spinning mid-air before it sharply came down horizontally in a deep dot. The writing tool slowly made its way into a clumsy circle, the lead staining into the paper so deep it was wonder the pencil didn't snap in half.

When it finally dropped, Isaiah peered at the new addition to the picture.

A dark, clumsy circle around the initials.

_FIND THEM_

Isaiah picked up the sketchbook, which she'd dropped onto her desk once she'd finished the jersey, to inspect the upper case demand more closely.

Her hands were set on fire.

The blonde girl shrieked, dropping the book as quickly as she'd picked it up. She looked from the book to her hands in petrified awe as smoke rose from the unmarked flesh, just as it did to the unharmed paper.

That was certainly new.

Isaiah drew in a shuddering breath and let it out slowly, pushing her desk chair away and standing on weak legs.

Claudia was getting stronger. And the stronger she got, the madder, the angrier she did as well, resulting in good for no one.

Soon, her son's life would really be on the line.

This thought terrified Isaiah, rocking her to her core as she thought about Claudia's written words. Find them.

Them as in plural.

Something must have had happened for it to jump to one to possibly three people that the dead woman could want on the other side with her.

But again, Isaiah had nothing in her corner. She knew absolutely nothing about Claudia, except for her name and that she had a son.

And that she wanted Isaiah to kill him.

There had to be more to know about her. If she had a husband; what her son's name was; why she wanted more people dead all of a sudden; why she brought nightmares and the sudden interest of death by yoyo with her.

Cautiously, Isaiah edged toward her desk, moving warily as she went for her laptop. Last time she was on it, was the day before she was shipped to Eichen, and no one had bothered to unplug it, probably causing the electric bill to skyrocket.

But at least it would have full charge, benefiting her with a solid four hours for research.

Once she was able to pick it up in her hands, going thankfully unburned this time, Isaiah made to her bed, settling against her enormous pile of pillows as she booted up her laptop, giving a soft contented noise as it hummed underneath her fingers. She typed in her password with ease, still remembering it by heart.

When clicking into her internet browser, Google instantly greeted her, along with a blinking cursor in the search bar.

Isaiah paused, her fingers hovering over the keyboard.

Uncertainly she typed in "Beacon Hills death of Claudia" hoping that not many Claudias had died.

The first few were links to a recent addition of the online Enquirer, scrolling further down was an article boldly titled SHERIFF'S WIFE PASSES IN SMALL CALIFORNIA TOWN.

That seemed promising.

Isaiah found the sheriff information to be ironic, grimly clicking on the link.

What would the sheriff think if he knew about how his wife was a serial killer in the afterlife, she thought to herself as the article popped up.

Quick examination proved for it to be not very long, about seven to nine paragraphs, each no longer than five sentences each.

_John Stilinski, sheriff of Beacon Hills, CA, and his son suffer from the tragic loss of his wife, Claudia Stilinski, on January 12th, 2004._

_Claudia Stilinski passed to due to an illness called frontotemporal dementia, which is caused by progressive cell degeneration. The symptoms of said disease include:_

_- Behavioral changes_

_ - Difficulty with speech_

_ - Corticobasal degeneration_

_- Progressive supranuclear palsy_

_A private gathering was held on January 24th, limited to family and close friends._

Isaiah pulled away from the screen, blinking.

"Frontotemporal dementia," Isaiah read aloud, aware of how she was butchering the words.

The first symptom stuck with her even after she clicked out and shut down her laptop.

_Behavioral changes._

"Is that why you want to kill him, Claudia?" she asked into the empty room. She shivered as the air conditioning kicked on, filling the huge space with chilly air.

Her question fell flat, torn to pieces by the silence and freezing air.

* * *

**This has to be one of the easiest stories for me to write in a long time.**

**I'm having so much fun writing it so far, and I already have so much planned for the future chapters.**

**Plus, something about writing Liam and Isaiah just gets me in the writing mood, so I hope it stays that way.**

**Future warning, the chapters so far are all staying the same length, and because I'm usually cramming in more than I'm taking out, they will probably only get longer as we go.**

**If you liked this chapter and are looking forward to an update soon, or have your own theories, please leave them in a review! They make me update faster!**


	4. Chapter 4

**CHAPTER THREE:**

_"What is to give life must endure burning."_

- viktor e. frankl

* * *

It took an eternity for him to fall asleep.

Stiles didn't know why, as he contemplated this the next morning, waking up in a sleeping bag in the McCall living room much like he did the night before. He'd been sleeping fairly well the past few weeks, finally submitting to the nightmares, becoming numb to their images. He'd finally stopped screaming in the middle of the night.

But last night, he'd tossed and turned, trying his best not to disturb those sleeping around him. The only one he hadn't been worried about waking was Kira; if she could sleep through Scott's donkey kicks and snoring from where she was snuggled underneath his arm, then nothing could wake her.

Scott, using his all-powerful alpha authority, decided that they would turn it into a pack weekend, seeing as they spent the entirety of Friday night keeping Liam from unconsciously wolfing out and destroying things.

Considering that he'd been up the entire night, then busy all of the next day, Stiles should be exhausted.

Instead of fatigue, however, Stiles felt supremely paranoid. Like eyes were burning lasers into the back of his neck.

If he wasn't so used to the feeling he'd mistake it for something else - jitters, fear from a horror movie he watched just a couple hours ago, something along those lines. But, unfortunately, the world of the supernatural had given him plenty of experiences with being watched, and the itch that burned all over his body that came with it.

"To hell with this," Stiles muttered in defeat. Being quiet be damned, this sleeping bag with suffocating him.

After kicking his way free, Stiles made a beeline for the kitchen, hoping a glass a milk and a sleeve of Oreos would help soothe him to sleep.

Unfortunately, he missed the silent, angry rattle of the hanging picture frames as he rounded the corner to the kitchen.

The sight of him boiled her, making her bones rattle and her eyes to darken dangerously.

He was a problem that needed to be exterminated.

* * *

Her parents gave her a week until her inevitable demise at Beacon Hills High. That gave her plenty of time to check their website and decide that the school was purely sports-based. Lacrosse, basketball, volleyball, track. It couldn't get anymore closer to a prison if it tried.

After the incident with her sketchbook, Claudia hadn't appeared again, which only offered a temporary relief before the alarm set in.

With a growing hit list and her strength beginning to double from what it started when she first appeared, Isaiah had good reason to lay awake, staring at her TV-lit ceiling until she was forcibly falling asleep.

It was darkness the entire night.

The whole day she spent doing a plethora of things - from avoiding her parents to drawing the jersey to picking out her outfit to deciding if she wanted to use a purse or handbag, or if it would even be appropriate for a freshman.

She didn't know any more about pop culture than she did in seventh grade, and that meant that Miley Cyrus had still been on Disney Channel, and nerd glasses hadn't come back.

To help refresh her mind a little, Isaiah spent most of her isolation anonymously surfing through the few social media sites that didn't require accounts - celebrity profiles on twitter; the most popular pages on Facebook; what videos were the most famous on YouTube.

Don't even mention the endless black hole of oddities that was Tumblr.

Really, Isaiah scrolled through the google results of what typed in, watching unfamiliar words swarm by as she ultimately decided that social media didn't need to be part of her life at the moment, not when it formed its own second language that everyone on the internet knew but her. No thank you.

Shutting down her laptop, Isaiah turned to her phone. It was brand new, like everything else she'd gotten in the past two weeks she'd been home, and much like the new backpack and school supplies that had awaited her on her bed her homecoming day, she found it to be too flashy for her taste.

The last thing on Isaiah's mind was fitting in with the new wave of her generation, like their phones and clothes and other fancy accessories.

But surely if her parents heard this, they would drop dead on the spot.

Isaiah had spent a lot of time in Eichen House thinking. There wasn't much to do there but think, and take your medicine, and talk about why you're crazy, and breathe, and go a little crazier.

She thought about her parents, and how different she'd always been from them, even before they locked her up. Isaiah didn't look down on the people with lesser money than her, or bark at the staff of seventy that was always on hand, or even bothered on touching money on a daily basis.

Isaiah knew she was the black sheep amongst her mother's country club gals and her father's bourbon buddies with equally loaded lifestyles, but she couldn't help but be content with less.

She sighed, rubbing at her eyes as she peeled off her socks and shimmied out of her jeans and into a soft pair of flannel pants, ditching her bra and sweater but keeping the tank underneath it.

Hopefully, her peers will be kinder to her return than her parents.

* * *

"I'm just saying, why can't we just..._detain_ her for a little?"

"Stiles, she's probably freaking out about her first day. She doesn't need to be ambushed."

"Scott, it's not ambush, just a little...intervention…"

"Like the _little intervention_ you gave me at the lake house?" Liam cut in, fixing a scowl at Stiles.

Stiles squawked indignantly, looking as if he was about to protest, but Scott put a hand on his chest, pushing him back.

"We're not going to do anything to her," the alpha turned to assure Liam, smiling.

Truthfully, Liam wasn't worried of what the pack would do when meeting Isaiah for the first time. She'd always been a people person, the type to always make fast friends. And the pack was harmless the majority of the time, much worse than them lurking the halls of Beacon Hills High.

But Liam knew firsthand how blunt they when it came to filling someone in on the supernatural happenings in the town. The last thing he wanted was Isaiah ditching him because of his friends before he even had a chance to amend their friendship.

"This poor girl is probably freaking out right now," Kira sighed, looking on in pity.

"Do we even know this girl's in immortal danger or a threat?" Lydia piped up, looking disinterested on the topic at hand. "Her name wasn't on the list, and at Eichen House, she probably knew Meredith before she...passed. She might have a handle on her powers."

For once, Liam found himself mentally agreeing with Lydia. He wanted Isaiah excluded from this for as long as possible.

"She might have information," Scott pressed. "And at the moment, we need as much help as we can get. Besides, I would feel a lot better if we were able to keep an eye on her, just in case."

Liam looked to clock on the wall impatiently. They still had fifteen minutes before homeroom, but the acrid smell of paint was overwhelming his sense, along with the stools that wouldn't stop squeaking. Of all meeting places, the art room hadn't been on the top of his list.

"Let's give her today," Kira suggested, kicking her legs back and forth. "The first day of a new school is always scary, and the last thing she needs to have on her shoulders is Beacon Hills' high homicide count. Plus, she's in the same grade as Liam, they have to have at least some classes."

When everyone looked at him, Liam sighed before giving a small nod. "Yeah, I'll look out for her," he vowed. "But I doubt much will happen. If she was a threat, someone would have tried something in Eichen while she was isolated and there were more alibis. She'll be fine."

As he said it, he tried to make himself believe it.

"You've been quiet," Stiles commented to Malia.

The girl in question had hardly said a thing since the pseudo-pack meeting had been called to order, staring blankly ahead of her as everyone else spoke.

"Something's off today," Malia muttered, then grabbed her bag from where she had set it at her feet and took off for the doors.

All the remaining pack members turned to Stiles, looking for an explanation.

"We're still working on manners," was all he said.

While Liam didn't like Stiles, even he could tell something was also bugging him. The bags under his eyes were more prominent than usual, and every little thing seemed to grate on his nerves lately, as if he couldn't be bothered to let his guard down.

Such sketchy, paranoid behavior put Liam on edge.

Like something terrible was about to happen.

He hated that feeling.

* * *

Her parents weren't making it any easier when they arranged for a driver to take her to school.

It wasn't a limousine, but pulling up in front of the building in a sleek black Mercedes couldn't help but turn heads.

Over the rim of her pulled down sunglasses, she met eyes with the driver, a graying old man named Henry, and felt a little better than she did leaving the house.

"I'll be right out here to escort you home at 3:30 sharp," he promised her solemnly she picked up her bag from beside. She had decided late that night on no purse.

"Of course. See you, Henry." Isaiah climbed out and turned, waving goodbye as he pulled away and smoothly started down the street.

Of the five drivers her parents found necessary, Henry was definitely her favorite, if not for his jokes, then undoubtedly for the bag of gummy animals he always gave her on her birthday.

Climbing the stairs to the north entrance of the school felt like hiking Mount Everest in sandals and short shorts. Even in her dark jeans and modest shirt and jacket combo, Isaiah felt like she was in no more than her bra and underwear. If the eyes on were anything to go by, she might as well had been.

Frost coated her tangled intestines as she stood at the top of the stairs, the glacier resting against her ribcage threatening to burst into a million of shards.

With stiff limbs, Isaiah opened the door and stepped inside.

The halls seemed to grow quiet when her boots hit the aluminum tile, the small tap of the rubber soles hitting the floor attracting the eyes of her piranha peers. They looked at her, their eyes like lasers focusing their red dots on her forehead, opening their mouths to expose their rows of razor teeth, lusting to sink them into her already soiled reputation.

Whispers rose into the air as strong and biting as smoke, rising the instant she put her right foot forward.

Every move she made was commented on, the flood of voices commenting on the arm that rose to adjust her sunglasses, judged the way she walked to the office.

As she expected, she could get no closer to hell.

Isaiah walked into the office, taking the privacy her dark lens provided to scope out the room. The beige walls did no job of hiding the cigarette burns above the wool cushioned chairs across from the secretary's desk, or the pencil lead trails left by wobbly pencils.

The entire room smelt like cheap perfume.

The only comfort Isaiah gathered from the room was the constant click-click of nails hitting keyboard. Even when one set stopped, another took its place. It was the only constant Isaiah had heard since the wailing woman of Eichen House, and for a moment, she quietly stood in the doorway, taking in the endless sound before the secretary noticed her.

The woman offered a plastic smile, not unlike the ones Isaiah had been getting from her mother. She didn't even bother to show her piranha teeth.

"Hello, you must be our new student." At the woman's words, Isaiah stoically stepped from the safety of the doorway and into the unfamiliar waters of the room. "Isaiah Montgomery, is it?"

"Yes, it is." Isaiah met her tone with one that was blander, giving off no interest.

"What an...interesting name," the woman commented, looking up from her computer screen to giver her once-over. She didn't even try to hide her disdain when spotting the glint of her simple silver band bracelet.

"If it's all the same to you, I would rather just get my information and get to my classes as quickly as possible," Isaiah rebuttled, hiking her backpack further up her shoulder. Anything this lady said on the oddity of her name was nothing Isaiah hadn't heard before, the majority of the comments uttered by her parents themselves.

The secretary gave her a look from over the rim of her cat frame glasses, but Isaiah couldn't be any less fazed. As she learned long ago, this town's bark was worse than its bite.

When the woman caught on that Isaiah wasn't going to back down, she turned away with her turned up high, reaching to the left and grabbing a thick manila packet.

"Here's all your information. Homeroom starts in twenty minutes, so I suggest you get moody."

"Thank you." Isaiah showed her teeth in a grimace as she accepted the offered packet, using all her energy to hold back the nasty name that wanted to fall off her tongue as she turned and walked back into the hallway.

**ISAIAH E. MONTGOMERY**

**Locker #1240**

**2-32-14**

**Student ID: 21107788**

**TRIMESTER 1**

**FRENCH…..MONTEL**

**ECONOMICS…..PEIRCE**

**H ALGEBRA 1….HARLEY**

**AP ENGLISH…...SINGER**

**H BIOLOGY….WALLACE**

**PHYS ED…..BAILIFF**

**TECHNOLOGY…...STARK**

**W HISTORY….ASHLEY**

***Please have the student get their username and password information from professor Stark for school-only internet/computer access.**

The map of the school was in bird's eye view, a glossy 15 x 15 paper with neon lines for hallways and faux hieroglyphic shapes for stairs. Bright red ink marked which rectangle on either side of the neon lines were which classroom and belong to what teacher. Bold Sharpie circles label the wings.

Isaiah huffed as she struggled with her papers and the map, practically feeling the ink of the glossy page as it stained the webbing of her hand. Her troubles did nothing to stop the attention she was attracting as she moved down the hall, head occasionally moving side to side as she read the small brass locker plates for 1240.

She finally came across an entire bank away from Singer's door. Isaiah gripped the rusty metal handle between her fingers, rolling her eyes as her inky fingers came away with flakes of rust.

Spinning the dial with practiced ease, Isaiah carefully went over how much time she had. Ten minutes wasn't enough to scope out all her classrooms; her locker was an entire hall and a staircase away from her homeroom. She was lucky if she had enough time to stuff all her brand new books into her locker and make it to her seat in time.

As Isaiah began to speedily stack her supplies in class order, the stream of students filling up the halls broke apart. Before she could turn to see why, the cause of it came hurling at her, full force.

"Hiya! Please tell me you're Isaiah or else I did a lot of physical movement for no reason."

The brunette speaking didn't seem to take pauses or breathe between each sentence, solely using speech on one puff of air. She was also panting, leaning against the locker beside Isaiah's, hands on knees.

"Yes, I am," Isaiah responded slowly, with an even slower nod. "And you are…?"

The girl, after recovering enough to stand up straight, smiled proudly and stuck a hand out. "Dana Albright at your service. The official welcome wagon of Beacon Hills High!"

Juggling her binder and textbook into one arm, Isaiah reached out so that they could pump hands twice.

"What are you, this place's tour guide?" she snorted as she stuck her head in her locker, trying not to have all of her school supplies collapse onto the floor.

Dana shrugged at the blonde's back. "More like, the principal is too lazy to give any tours himself, so he makes one of the students do it." She laughed a little, crossing her arms. "Those lazy fucks even gave you my schedule. If it bugs you, the guidance counselor can change it."

Triumphantly, Isaiah pulled out of her locker, finally satisfied with her pyramid of new textbooks and binders.

"Nah, I should be good." The blonde offered a smile as she carefully tried to observe the girl.

Dana seemed nice enough, with big brown eyes that flitted this way and that, framed by eyelashes that flapped like butterfly wings. Her hair was tucked into a half pony, feathers hanging from the locks that spilled over her leather jacket.

Not the worst person to be greeting her on her first day.

"Good thing too," Dana was saying when Isaiah finished her mental inspection. "Morell is kinda creepy, in that weird way the allies in all the good suspense movies are, you know?"

Isaiah nodded as they started down the hall, pretending that sixth grade hadn't been the last time she'd seen any kind of suspense movie.

But the name Morell struck something in depths of her mind. Something about that name was familiar, but god forbid she actually know what.

Instead of pondering it, however, Isaiah just smile and nodded when Dana offered her a spot a her lunch table and tried not to think about how the only experience she had with French anything was French fries.

The frost inside her was thinner now, melting as Dana dragged her down the hall.

It felt good.

* * *

"That new kid is hot."

Mason didn't even bother with a greeting before jumping straight into the topic of the day.

"For a girl?" Liam didn't miss a beat, twisting the cap of his juice with a smirk.

His friend rolled his eyes. "Yeah, for a girl. But everyone's talking about her."

Liam couldn't deny that. Whether Isaiah wanted it or not, she was definitely in the spotlight. And unfortunately, with the reputation this school had, was likely to stay until the next homicide, which would take a while with the official disbandment of the deadpool, thank god.

All things considered, it was fairly easy to keep an eye on her throughout the day. So far, the only person Liam had seen her talk to was Dana, one of the less oblivious of his classmates about the town, to put it nicely. But if the two had been discussing supernatural matters, they were doing a damn good job of hiding it.

"But it's still pretty weird that the school let her transfer so quickly," Mason was saying around a mouthful of fries when Liam stopped scanning the cafeteria.

"How so?"

"Dude, she came Eichen. Eichen, the freaky asylum on the hill?" Mason stared at him wide-eyed, as if he too should be astonished by this. Maybe if he wasn't a werewolf or didn't know that Stiles had been there once, then he probably would have been.

"Yeah, I know what it is." Liam took a large swig of his juice before continuing. "But with this town's homicide record, are you that surprised that they let asylum patients attend high school?" Honestly, he'd been more shocked when Scott explained the aspect of not getting drunk to him.

(Which, he still found to be an utter disappointment, because it also meant there was no getting high.)

"I don't know, man," Mason sighed. He moved on to his burger, which the cafeteria ladies had taken to burning to a charred oval of meat. However, that didn't stop him from taking a bite. "There's just...something different about her, you know?"

Liam grimaced as he ducked to avoid flying bits of food as his friend spoke, but couldn't help but agree.

There was no denying that Liam was expecting an entirely different Isaiah than the one that disappeared two years ago. Stiles and Lydia had both told stories about Eichen House, all of them grim. And Meredith, a shell of the person she should be, was living proof of the changes that place had on a person.

But a different, buried part of him didn't want to believe that. That part of him remembered how stubborn Isaiah had always been, choosing to believe her way was the right one. And her way was always the positive one. To think that such a beautiful and strong person like her was broken by a place like Eichen was believable, but not acceptable.

Unfortunately, Liam had no proof of either at the moment. Instead of walking over to the table Dana and Isaiah were at like a man, he watched them from a distance and idly avoided the flying pieces of chewed up burger that came flying at him whenever Mason spoke.

There didn't seem to be any right way to approach her.

* * *

The change of everything in her departure sickened her. The school, the neighborhood, those god awful church ladies. It all piled on until she was practically boiling underneath it all.

Unlike her years as a high schooler, the vulgar nature of the students had increased tenfold. Hoots and hollers around every corner, clear disobedience in the face of their authority figures, it all was so disappointing.

But Claudia was please to watch to Isaiah, hunched over her starter packet in World History, behaving like such a good girl, hanging on to her teacher's every word.

Yes, there was no denying her success in picking her faithful little banshee.

It was shame, though, that her own son couldn't behave so accordingly. Of only he wasn't so problematic.

Although, soon it wouldn't be an issue. Soon, she would be free of her ghastly chains on This Side, and he would step in to take her place. Willingly or not.

* * *

**This chapter was kind of hard to write, to be honest. I wanted them to meet, but not have face-to-face interaction yet, so I decided to turn Liam into a little stalker...hehe.**

**Updating will unfortunately become a little flakier than it already is because I'm going back to school tomorrow, so I thought I would update as an advance apology. I think this one is one of the longest, so far.**

**Please review and tell me what you think of Isaiah and Claudia so far! (An evil Claudia is surprisingly hard to write...)**


	5. Chapter 5

**CHAPTER FOUR:**

"Hell is empty and all the devils are here"

- william shakespeare

* * *

This time, it wasn't hers.

But it was still her hands - pale and shaky in the darkness of wherever the hell she was, but she would recognize them anywhere.

She could recognize them even as they gripped a thin line of string in each shaking fist, cutting into the smooth flesh of the throat below her.

Isaiah didn't want to kill him. He was beautiful. Slender, with smooth skin dotted with moles and dark hair that stood in place on his head. But his eyes didn't fit. His huge brown eyes, glittery with tears and red staining them unnaturally. He was terrified.

Of her. He was terrified of her.

What threw her was they were both screaming. His fine pink lips were tore open in a soundless scream, his voice gurgling with the blood that sprouted from his mouth and stained his teeth as the string bit into his throat, inch by inch, cutting his windpipe into pieces.

The other scream was unfamiliar, but Isaiah could feel the raw burn it left behind in her throat. It was almost animalistic, bouncing off their surroundings and back to her ears. It echoed endlessly, overlapping itself in a continuous loop.

Isaiah hated it, but it didn't stop. Neither do her hands, even after the string was well coated in the beautiful boy's blood. A thick river of it ran from the mole dotted throat, the column of skin severed.

It didn't stop until shadows crept over their bodies - hers, shaking, and his, still as a statue, cool as marble.

By the time she woke up, Isaiah was already hoarse and slumped in front of her toilet, retching up the nonexistent contents of her stomach.

Her hands shook in her lap, but felt warm and slick with blood.

Claudia drank it all in at a distance, silent.

* * *

James and Delilah Montgomery were not family-oriented people.

She wasn't asking for a modern spin on Full House or anything that drastic. Hell, she knew that even God himself couldn't make a miracle like that happen. But would it kill them to at least _pretend_ like she wasn't still locked up?

It was possible they didn't mean to be so isolated. Maybe they couldn't help it, because of the way they were raised.

Isaiah didn't know much about either of her parents' pasts, which was the way she saw it staying until their deaths.

Sometimes, she hated it this way. She wanted to know where they hung out, if they had cars or hooked up with that one person their parents' couldn't stand. She wondered if they had good or bad grades, were popular or one of the normals. She thought about if they were ever bullies, or one of the people who casted judging glances from a distance and let a person succumb to the whispers around them.

But most times, she knew it was better if she remained in the dark.

That was the main reason why Isaiah kept quiet about Dana, her first and, by default, closest friend at school. Dana wasn't bad - quirky, at best, but still good. Good grades, good attitude, good friends, good social ranking. Just naturally good, inside and out.

She didn't want her parents' fangs sinking in and draining her of it.

Fortunately, Isaiah didn't have to worry about queries on her first week of school, because they never came.

Instead of sitting at their enormous dinner table and discussing mundane breakfast conversation, Isaiah munched on her apple and banana nut muffin in silence, glowering down the corridor that led to her mother's shut up study. Her father lacked the idea of being at home on a Friday morning altogether, choosing to lurk around one of his many office buildings instead.

Sourly, Isaiah bit into the juicy green skin of her apple, and debated throwing it out the long wall of windows to the right of her, just to hear the glass break.

"You're never truly alone, pathetic little child," Claudia chided from where she stood against the wall. The dirt covering her frail body seemed more prominent than the last time Isaiah had seen her pop up. As if she brushed on a fresh layer, like she was applying powder.

The woman smiled, her teeth like a shark's. "You have me."

* * *

"You're staring."

The redhead didn't refocus her gaze, but instead looked harder, staring into the distance as if it held the answer to all of life's questions. As if she didn't know them already, practically.

"It's creepy," Malia added to Stiles' comment, biting into her Sloppy Joe with vigor.

"He's acting unusual," Lydia said in response once she finally tore her attention away.

Scott turned to see what she was talking about.

Her gaze had been settled on Liam's table, where the freshman sat with Mason and few of the other members of the lacrosse team. He was looking at a bigger guy intensely, focusing as he spoke of something with exaggerated hand gestures.

Other than the fact Liam's plate was already empty and it wasn't even ten minutes into the lunch hour, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

"I don't see it," the alpha confessed with a shrug.

Lydia gave a sigh, rolling her eyes in her typical manner. "Well, not now. But before, he was staring her down." She nodded her head toward a table to over from the beta's, where a small group of girls sat, all talking at the same time.

Scott tilted his head enough to observe the small trio. A blonde and brunette sat across from another brunette, each poised with a plastic spork in their hand.

The blonde looked almost out of place amongst the other two, her eyes bouncing back and forth as her friends talked. It seemed apparent she was more comfortable with just observing, running the tongues of her spork on her food lazily.

"Hey, isn't that the Montgomery girl?" Kira piped up, looking up from her nachos - stale tortilla chips with brown meat and artificial cheese. Scott resisted the urge to chuckle at her cute obliviousness to the glob of yellow sitting on the corner of her mouth.

"Shit, yeah," Stiles exclaimed, taking a look for himself.

The girl didn't look anything like the banshees Scott had encountered. She didn't hold Lydia's self-confidence, but she didn't appear to have any of Meredith's blatant fear either. In all honesty, Isaiah Montgomery couldn't look any more like a regular freshman girl. The only thing Scott could immediately point out to be different about her was that she had the money to dress with all the top brands. But not even that she showed off.

"She looks pretty boring," Malia summed up, her chewed straw bit between her teeth.

Lydia tossed them all a bland look. "What did you expect? A blinking neon sign?"

"Well, it's not like you and Meredith don't stand out in a crowd," Stiles rebuttled.

She tossed him a sneer. "Funny."

"When do you think Liam's going to make his move?" Kira asked. The small tip of her tongue poked out, wiggling as it tried in vain to reach the cheese blemish.

"This isn't a John Hughes movie, Yukimura, this is a pack mission," Stiles snorted.

"For God's sakes, Stiles, it's not like she's going to stand up and give a death prophecy right here," Lydia snapped.

Despite agreeing that his friend's accusations were slightly above ridiculous, Scott knew that it was just because they weren't getting anywhere.

Liam claimed to have broken off all contact with Isaiah and her family when she went to Eichen, and that showing up out of the blue would only get him a door in his face. And since he refused to build up the nerve to approach her at school, here they were, back at square one.

Scott focused on the blonde girl once again. He wondered what his beta was so afraid of. The alpha had found Lydia way more intimidating from afar than Isaiah appeared to be.

Whatever it was that was keeping her away, her friends obviously didn't see it. The brunette sitting beside her grabbed her arm, excitedly talking as their other friend nodded along, looking much like a perky bobblehead.

It was hard to imagine there being anything different about her at all.

* * *

She waited. She bottled up the icy fury inside her chest until she was locked in the safety of her soundproof room, alone and unbothered.

Isaiah felt her close by all day. Lurking outside her classes, trailing around the school's packed hallways, watching from afar as she sat with her friends at lunch.

Claudia was getting stronger now. Her presence had grown somehow, and continued to.

"What do you want from me?" She shouted into the emptiness of her room. She felt the bottle in her chest, the cork flying off as its contents spilled into her arms, making them shake, making her fingers curl into slender fists. So pale against the dark fabric of her jeans that it could be mistaken for snow.

She was not a killer.

She was not a monster.

Isaiah Montgomery was a girl.

A freshman in high school.

Just barely fifteen.

"Burn in hell!" Isaiah screamed.

She imagined Claudia's son, the one with the chopped windpipe, his blood on her hands, his death a weight on her shoulders for eternity.

The dead woman appeared as if she had already been there.

She smiled, her gums gray and gruesome as they supported yellow teeth.

"We're already there," she sing-songed, looking happy.

Isaiah spent the rest of her night in her closet, armed with nothing but her sketchbook and backpack full of homework, trying to blink away the numbers that illogically swam in front of her eyes.

Claudia hated small spaces.

* * *

"Are you going to the lacrosse game tomorrow?"

"I thought you hated sports."

Dana shrugged, her hair moving with the action. "Well, yeah, I guess. But I can't stay cooped up in my room forever. My parents might begin to think I want to spend time with them!"

Isaiah snorted as Dana's body rolled in a shudder, her face contorting as if the thought of bonding time with her parents was worse than eating a bucket of dead insects.

She hadn't had the pleasure of meeting Dana's parents yet, but she knew the gist of their relationship - high school sweethearts, engaged during their last year of college, both with enviable job positions at a law firm in the town next door.

And blessed with an intelligent and energetic social butterfly of a daughter.

The Albrights' couldn't get any closer to picture perfect if you framed them and hung it on a wall.

"Doesn't our lacrosse team suck, anyway?" Isaiah argued, pushing the cap back on her yellow highlighter.

Dana shrugged, smiling with all her teeth. "Absolutely. But that doesn't mean we can't go and enjoy the view, right?"

Isaiah sighed, looking up at the clock.

Dana had forty-seven minutes left to sell why going and gawking at sweaty, helmeted boys would be an awesome way to spend a perfectly good Thursday night.

"Besides," her friend hurried to add, "we always play against Davenforth. One of these days, they're going to pity us enough to forfeit a couple of points, and why would we want to miss such a fantastic piece of Beacon Hills High history?"

"Winning a game?"

"No, getting ten points closer to a possible tie."

Isaiah breathed in deeply through her nose, inhaling a big whiff of chalk and Dana's strawberry shampoo.

Earlier, the morning announcements had reported that the entire school's sixth hour would be extended to a seventy-five minute period due to all administration needing to be in a meeting during that time block, which also meant the entire school would be let out early.

Instead of killing herself in the weight room under the watchful eye of Coach Bailiff, Isaiah would be able to spend her time with Dana in an old Life Skills classroom along with the rest of her Phys Ed class. Taking the time to "study and increase the amount of attention they paid to their more lackluster sections of education," according to the rest of the morning announcement in first hour.

"Come on, you can't tell me you aren't the least bit interested in a guy on the team? Loads of freshmen hotties are on it this year, including that blonde fella that's been catching your eye. What's his face - Liam Something?"

At this, Isaiah nearly snapped her just picked up pen in half. She knew that her wandering eye had been landing on her old friend a lot, but she hadn't accounted on Dana picking up on it. That just went to show how much more careful Isaiah had to be around her, to protect her sane status while it was still intact.

There was also the issue of MSD.

Whoever the hell they were.

Isaiah had some suspicions of who the S and D belonged to, but the M was a total mystery, and Claudia was offering no hints to if Isaiah's crack-of-dawn research was getting her any closer to figuring it out.

"I won't know anything about what's going on," Isaiah tried one last time, but she could already feel her weak restraint cracking.

Dana could sense it too, and smiled brightly, sitting up as she tapped her red pen against the chair she was currently straddling. "Don't worry, most of the game is Coach Finstock yelling and a lot of booing. You'll get used to it."

Isaiah highly doubted it, but said nothing.

Instead of working on the twenty pages she was supposed to read from her World History textbook, Isaiah spent the rest of her extended hour creating a list of why it was horrible idea to agree to attend a lacrosse game:

**Claudia.**

**Liam is probably for sure on the team.**

**Sports are boring.**

**Claudia.**

**It's probably going to be freezing.**

**Nothing to wear.**

**Claudia.**

**Liam.**

**Claudia.**

When they were finally released, Isaiah parted ways with Dana saying she'd meet her at the game and a promise to send her a picture of her outfit for the game. Apparently there was a dress code for sitting in the bleachers and watching their team lose. Awesome.

She didn't bother calling for her driver because of the early release. It was only a ten minute city bus ride to corner of town where her house was, and she had worn boots, making for good walking footwear.

She could brave a little bit of self-transportation for once.

For the first time in years, Isaiah felt an odd sense of calm washing over her. It was pleasant, like the right amount of sunshine on a cloudless blue sky day. She hadn't experienced that kind of day in forever either, always seeing the empty ceiling of Eichen or drawing-covered walls of her own room.

The outside was nice for once. It felt good.

Besides the usual lull of the staff moving around the house, it was quiet when Isaiah arrived home. The chandelier in the foyer shook as she slammed the door shut, and Gretchen called out a warning about the just mopped floors and for goodness sakes, my child, please no slammin' doors!

To stay on the Scottish maid's good side, Isaiah paused at the door long enough to pull off her boots and tuck them under her arm, hurrying up the stairs before she could slip and fall on the shiny clean floor in her socks.

Not even Claudia showed up to disintegrate her peaceful mood.

The young blonde took advantage of her privacy by pulling all her drawers open and flicking the light on in her open closet, making sure all of her options for proper clothing were within her reach.

Isaiah never found herself being good with knowing what to where. Often, when she was little and carted to all of her family's fancy galas, her mother had maids pick out her outfits for her. They were usually as over the top and flashy as the event was, but this was different. This was school thing. Not even that, really. It was just going to be her and a friend, sitting on bleachers and watching cute boys run around in the cold.

Nothing special.

But she would like to think her years in Eichen House - two years of slippers and sweats and long sleeves - had not dulled her sense of fashion too much. What she wore seemed to be the only thing about her her peers found to be socially acceptable.

Tentatively, she fingered a thick pair of tights. She was a little tired of jeans; it was all she had been wearing all week - jeans and sweaters. Even Isaiah knew wearing the same thing over and over again was a bit tacky.

With a decisive nod, Isaiah pulled the tights out, along with a gray pair of over the knee socks before quickly switching from her dresser to her closet, making a beeline toward her rack of skirts.

It a minute, her eye still not use to having to locate specific hangers yet, but she managed to pull free a navy blue circle one and deciding that the gray cross sweater she currently sported would be just fine.

She made the change quickly, wiggling in her tights and socks first before hopping into her skirt and adjusting it a bit.

Isaiah glanced into the mirror and ran a hand through her hair.

She felt jittery, as if she was about to go on a date.

But that was ridiculous.

It was just a lacrosse game. The only one there to impress was Dana, and she would probably be too intently focused on the players to notice her past the first five minutes.

She was freaking out over nothing.

Isaiah turned fully to her reflection in her full-length mirror.

"Quit being such a weird fucker," she told herself sternly, then spun on her heel to grab her favorite leather jacket.

She was suddenly freezing.

* * *

Her prediction about the game was pretty much spot on.

When she arrived, Isaiah couldn't even find Dana at first. It took a couple minutes of feeling like a complete idiot and a lot of aimless wandering for her to finally locate her friend's cheerful face finding underneath a baby blue beanie, her hair flying in the nippy breeze. She looked ecstatic, and the game was only two minutes in.

"Hey, you made it!" The brunette dove to drag Isaiah forward in a bone-crushing hug when the duo met on the stairs, quickly pulling away to yank her down in the seat next to her.

"What'd I miss?" Isaiah asked, even though she had a hunch it was nothing.

Dana had already turned back to scanning the field. She flapped a hand in her friend's general direction. "Oh, nothing much. Finstock yelling, but he does that as often as he breathes."

Isaiah turned to the game as well, trying not to admit how quickly she began scanning the BH players for the name DUNBAR written across the back of their jersey. Liam had always been a star at whatever sport he played, unfairly so.

Within a glob on players on the farther side of the field, she finally spotted him, DUNBAR, with an equally bold 9 underneath.

It was hard to read him with such a distance between them, but even Isaiah could tell he was intently focused on his small group around him, looking to be made of no more than three other players.

She tilted her head at this, confused. Isaiah was no expert on sports, but that big a cluster during the middle of a play seemed odd.

Coach Finstock didn't look as curious about as she was, seeming to ignore the other side of the field. He looked too busy shouting, "get the hell on defense ladies!" at the defense line.

Isaiah kept her focus trained on Liam and his group until they broke apart, squinting at player 15. Were those braids.

Quickly, she turned to Dana. "Hey, is that a girl on the field?"

The brunette followed her friend's finger, squinting as well. "Oh, yeah," she said mildly. "Kira Yukimura. The first girl player in two decades. Impressive."

Dana was quick to turn her attention back to the rushing bodies of the opposing team, but Isaiah focused a little more on 15.

The first girl player in two decades?

Impressive wasn't the word for it.

The first half continued for another twenty minutes or so, BH behind by a record 30.

Dana was rambling off about how there should be cheerleaders for more sports—like _lacrosse_, for instance—when Isaiah noticed something.

Claudia, looking _murderous_. Her dress seemed more torn, her filth-caked body more gaunt. But that didn't seem to matter to her. She only had eyes for the player with the 24 on his back.

And STILINSKI printed in large, bold white letters above it.

Isaiah tried her best to sustain a gasp, digging her uncut nails into the thinly covered skin of her thin, shaking Dana by the arm.

Her friend abruptly stopped in the middle of her long-winded sentence.

"What?"

"Who is that?" Isaiah demanded, taking her hand from her friend's arm to point to 24, who still sat with his back to them, in the process of taking his helmet off.

Dana's forehead crinkled. "Stiles Stilinski? Why're you asking about a junior?"

Junior.

Isaiah stood suddenly, nearly knocking Dana off the bleacher.

"Where are you going?" her friend called out to her, but Isaiah's too focused on weaving her way through the crowded stands that she didn't bother responding.

It can't happen here. It can't it can't itcan't.

Claudia couldn't strike. She couldn't be strong enough to do anything now, only a few hours since Isaiah saw her last.

Claudia couldn't kill him at a stupid lacrosse game.

_She couldn't_.

_She won't_.

Momentarily triumphant, the blonde jumped from the last step, taking a moment to adjust her clothes before running to the players' bench.

Briskly, she tapped him on the shoulder, mentally preparing herself for the worst.

When he turned, he look shocked to see her standing there, as if she had suddenly popped into existence wearing a toga and sandals with wings.

She would have thought the stunned look on his face was cute, if Claudia wasn't slowly inching closer to the players' bench, ready to pounce if one was to judge her by her stance.

"We really need to talk," Isaiah told Liam urgently.


End file.
